I can't believe all the raves for this aggressive attempt to bring back the musical (I skipped `Moulin Rouge'). It appears to have been spliced together out of millions of shots that don't last much longer than 3 seconds at the most. "Chicago" is the MTV-ization of the movies at its most blatant. The credits at the end say the stars did all their own singing and dancing, but who can tell after their efforts have been chopped up into little bits and pieces? In the "good old days," you knew that Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, etc. (or even performers not noted for being hoofers, like Frank Sinatra) were really dancing because the camera stayed on them for long takes and photographed them from head to toe. (It's true that dubbed singing was not unheard of even then.) Under these frenetic circumstances, it's a wonder that Renee Zellweger actually manages to establish a character and give a halfway decent performance. She does a good job of blending kewpie-doll innocence and tough-as-nails cynicism. The satiric points the show makes about the way people exploit the media for their own ends (and vice versa) are still relevant, of course, but it gets lost in the relentless roar of the Dolby surround sound. I found that putting tissue in my ears to muffle it during the showing was a big help, as I would have been deafened otherwise.
